Of Offered Mercy and Buried Memory
by Haruka Tenou Distant Sky King
Summary: - "Best I kill you now." The Sforza boy flinched, eyes wide in fear. The memory Bennito's reaction unearthed began to play before Micheletto's mind's eye... - The actions of Bennito Sforza, in reaction to the offered mercy killing, call to mind a memory Micheletto had thought long buried. - Rated for safety.


**As soon as I saw this scene in the most recent episode, I just _had_ to use it. The warnings - mentions of torture, mentions of abuse, mentions of rape, mentions of homosexuality - are the usual. I hope you like the one-shot! Oh, and since Sam ****(whom has recently been re-named Alessandra for things she features in which take place during Renaissance Italy)**, my _Borgias_ OC, plays a part in this, I'd like to know if I fit her in alright with the world The Borgias has created, and by extension if I portray Micheletto alright. I hope I've done alright, but enough of my ramblings and onto the disclaimer.  


**Disclaimer: I do not own _The Borgias_, as that is property of Showtime and of history itself; however, I do wish I owned Micheletto at times. Sam is my OC, so please don't use her without my permission, alright?**

* * *

Blue-green eyes watched the boy for a moment, something about this niggling at the back of his mind. He could hear his master, His Eminence Cardinal Cesare Borgia, and the Spanish Conquistador – the man's name was Hernando, if he remembered correctly – speaking, but paid them mind with only one ear; the rest of his attention was focused upon the boy in the cell. There was that little niggling voice in the back of his mind, again; there was something familiar about this scene – something _personally_ familiar. Something he had long ago learned not to ignore. Ignoring things like this… well, in his line of work, it was like handing over information to ones' enemies and _asking_ to have it used against oneself.

His master's speaking brought the redhead assassin back to reality fully. _"Who is it?"_ Cesare wished to know the identity of the boy, it seemed. Said boy didn't react, neither to the Cardinal, nor to the Conquistador. Noting this, Micheletto stepped in. Gripping one of the horizontal bars of the cell door, he bent to be more on eye-level with the boy. "Look at me, boy." He spoke firmly, but not unkindly. A beat of silence passed, and then the boy looked up, raising his head from his knees. Realizing that the shadows were impeding visibility, the assassin spoke again.

"You come closer, or I'll come in there and get you." A bit firmer this time, but still not unkind. There was silence, as the boy levered himself to his feet, before moving out from the obscuring shadows of the back wall of the stone cell. When he moved into the light, Micheletto barely heard his master identify the boy as Caterina Sforza's son, Bennito. For a moment, he saw another face superimposed over the boy's. It was equally bruised and bloody, but younger, and female rather than male. Pale, much more green eyes than his own flashed before his vision for a moment – _"Michele…"_ The blue-green-eyed rigidly kept his face from expressing anything (and succeeded), while shoving the frightened, almost childish voice from his mind.

"What happened to your hand?" He posed the question both from the practical need for information, and to ground himself in the present. No need to be thinking about _her_ right now, after all. Once again, Micheletto listened with only one ear, as the Conquistador supplied the information that the boy's finger had been cut off. Taking Bennito's hand in both of his with a gentleness which would have surprised any but _her_, the assassin carefully examined the wound. His one-eared listening continued, as his master and the Spaniard conversed, his heart unexpectedly reacting to what he discovered.

Perhaps it was because of how much this boy reminded him of _her_, or perhaps it was because a child had been needlessly harmed, but for whatever reason, his heart clenched at his findings. Shoving the unneeded emotion and compassion away, he held his face, eyes, and voice neutral as he spoke to the boy. His gaze remained upon the hand for the moment. "The poison in this wound runs deep…" Micheletto looked up from the hand he held firmly, but tenderly, to make eye-contact with Bennito. "You will lose an arm, or hand at least." A moment of near-strained silence, then – "Best I kill you now." The Sforza boy flinched back out of his grip, eyes wide in fear, and the redhead winced internally. _She_ had reacted the same way, had she not?

He barely heard, when his suggestion was vetoed; the memory the boy's actions had brought forth from where it had been long buried deep in his subconscious mind playing before his mind's eye…

* * *

He had been twenty-three years old, when things changed irreversibly. For seven years, at the time, he had been plying the trade of an assassin-for-hire, and had quickly come to find it a very lonely profession – always master-less; always in the shadows. Never _really_ needed by those that paid him. However, there had always been one source of solace for him; one point of light in a dark world. Though his parents had ceased to mean too much to him a long time ago – his mother forsaking her family to hide, to escape into the fantasies of her own creation; his father a drunk, gambling, abusive bastard who had forced him to learn the way of the assassin – there was one person he would have given his life to defend. Though she could not have said if it were out of love (if he even _had_ the capacity to love) or out of selfishness, he would have given–done–said _anything_ to protect her innocence. She was the sun in his sky, the air that sustained him, the one reason he still believed there was some purity left in the world. She was his little sister, Alessandra.

Though they had both long been used to their father's abusive ways, Alessandra had always been a pure, happy child; but she had grown strong in character, as well. And then, the incident which broke her, and inevitably rebuilt her in a much more jaded fashion had occurred. She had been fifteen at the time, as there was eight years difference in their ages, and he had just returned from a recently completed assassination. (This was some time before he had relocated to Rome to "study medicine.") He had found her curled in a tiny ball – as if to avoid notice, or, failing that, to make herself a smaller target – on her equally tiny bed, in her equally tiny room. She was crying, her long red hair falling haphazardly across her shoulders and face. Though she had been making no sound, when he placed a hand upon her back, he had found that she was trembling.

Despite the fact that she had still made no sound, she had jerked away from his touch, eyes wide and obviously extremely frightened. That action had allowed him to see that the skirt and bodice of her dress were ripped and torn, along with being stained with blood as well. Her face had been equally bloody, and had been bruised and scratched as well; one of her pale green eyes had been swollen shut, too. Though he dared not look under her dress, he was still sickened by the certainty of what he knew he would have found there. The breath of an almost-sobbed whisper – _"Michele…"_ – was all the warning he received, before his sister had all but flung herself into his arms.

He had held her close, gently rubbing her back in comfort. He had ignored the feeling of her stark ribs pressed against his own; how her bloody, raw fingers had clutched at his shirt, leaving faint trails of crimson. There was no need to acknowledge these things; they were the normal fare, after all, when he came home just after she had received a beating. However, it was only when he had been away, that she would let him see her tears, and sometimes not even then; if he had been there when the beating occurred, she would hide her pain, even from him. She was much stronger than most – even he himself at times – gave her credit for.

This time, he had feared, would be one of the times she hid her tears and pain from him; and yet, the fact that their swine of a father had crossed the line changed the equation. "I'm sorry," he had murmured, after what had seemed like an eternity of holding her silently sobbing, trembling form close. "I had hoped… that your first time with a man would have been… gentler than this." He knew that that was all he could have hoped for; it would have been very likely that her marriage would have been chosen for her. Another silent, breathless eternity seemed to pass, before she answered him. When she finally did, he could hear the weak, bitter smile in her voice. "I don't like men, nor boys… not like you do, big brother." He had gasped softly – they both lusted after their same sex? – but by the time he had gathered himself to question this, she had been asleep in his arms.

The next day, Alessandra had demanded that he teach her the ways of an assassin. Reluctantly, he had agreed, and over the next months, he had found himself having to admit – though equally as reluctantly – that her raw skill and sheer natural talent could have him draw only one conclusion. His baby sister was a natural-born assassin. After the second time Alessandra was raped by their bastard of a father (for which he blamed himself – he had taught her not to fight someone who would do her twice as much harm, only to evade and run at the first opportunity) he had snapped and finally killed the man, after which he had hidden away from Forli for a time. When he had returned, he had found his mother mourning as if his sister had died. He had relocated to Rome "to study medicine" shortly after, never knowing the truth – if his dear sister lived or was dead.

* * *

The Conquistador's words – _"I fight men, not boys,"_ – so similar to the ones his sister had spoken that day, were what brought Micheletto back to the present. Mentally, he berated himself for getting caught up in the past and in his memories. He peered at Bennito a moment longer; Alessandra's face was no longer imposed in ghostly silhouette over the boy's own features. Good. "Pity," he said, all but spitting the word. Let his master and the Spaniard think that he had simply lost all sympathy for a boy who rejected what he saw as the offer of a mercy killing. It was, after all, partially true; the assassin was a bit annoyed at the boy's stupidity, but if he wished to go through the pain of losing a limb or worse, then that was the Sforza's own affair. The redhead turned from the cell then, and followed his master out of the dungeon.

Only Micheletto would ever know what the "pity" was – he hadn't seen his sister since she was sixteen, he didn't know if she were still alive or if she were dead, and he was having a hard time convincing himself that he didn't care.


End file.
